OUR WINE STORY

Our Wine Story

Award-winning Fine English Bubbly

Dryhill vineyard is situated on free draining limestone terraces cut by the Romans and it nestles in a fold on the side of the Cotswold escarpment at around 130m above sea level.

Our Cheltenham vineyard is tended by hand which allows minimum intervention to help strive for the finest fruit using sustainable principles.

It is said that the great wine is made in the vineyard and everything we do is focused on optimizing the quality of our grapes.

We grow Pinot Noir to give structure to our premium bubbly, Pinot Meunier for complexity, Chardonnay for texture and we only make vintage bubbly to celebrate a given year.

We look forward to sharing our bubbly with you

From little acorns…oak barrels

In centuries past, oak barrels were routinely used for flavour development to add a dash of spicy vanilla richness in Champagne. We are following this heritage approach.

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"Our philosophy is to focus on our fruit to create wine with a sense of time and place."

The wine journey - life behind the glass

After the harvest our grapes are separated by colour and then gently pressed for around six hours to slowly release the best quality juice known as the first ‘pressing.’

A proportion of the juice is stored in elegant oak barrels previously used for two years in the production of burgundy wine. This helps develop delicate vanilla notes, softness and complexity in our wines.

Thereafter we use traditional method fermentation and further age our bubbly in bottles “on the lees” (in contact with yeast) for an extended timescale generally more than 36 months.

Periodic tasting ensures the wine is released at just the right time and all our bubbly is vintage, made from grapes from a single year.

Our still Rosé wine…it’s a Slippery Slope

After the harvest our grapes are gently pressed to give a premium quality clear juice for producing our best sparkling bubbly. Afterwards we are fortunate to have a quantity of “pink juice” remaining: this is ideally suited for producing an easy drinking summer Rosé.

Our wine making style gives a refreshing wine that is light in alcohol compared to many bigger French Rosé wines and is deliciously fruity: perfect for sharing with friends and family.

In celebration of our steep vineyard terraces which are wet in winter we have named this still Rosé “Slippery Slope”. Only a small number of bottles of this Rosé are produced each year.

Meet Lesley-Anne and Nigel

Nigel qualified as a Chemical Engineer and that course introduced him to both brewing distillation and fermentation processes. He has been granted two patents including one that helped Eric Clapton project his voice at rock concerts through innovative loudspeaker technology.

Nigel has raised funds for African Wildlife Conservation in particular Rhino Ark and The Born Free Foundation. In addition, he walked with Lord Ian Botham to help raise £4.5 million for The Teenage Cancer trust to build the first children’s hospital for Wales in Cardiff. Nigel is a member of the MCC and created the first British Standard approved helmet for the England cricket team.

Today Nigel works over 1000 hours each season in his beloved vineyard to ensure Dryhill produces only the finest fruit. He particularly enjoys his Wednesday morning vineyard volunteer sessions, where he teaches members of the local community the art of viticulture.

Lesley-Anne has a background in the National Health Service as an ultrasound professional. After 10 years, she re-trained to focus on her natural ability in design. Her first project involved designing for various Golf Course projects in Spain. She later worked in Formula 1 creating events in Monaco and later at Silverstone.

Her design work took her to Kenya where she designed a number of innovative safari lodges and camps including the International Award Winning Elsa’s Kopje …originally voted the ‘Best in the World ‘. Today Lesley-Anne’s design work includes the current Dryhill bottle artwork, style,colour and shape: she directs all our design choices. She also styles all Dryhill properties for rental.

Lesley-Anne also works in the vineyard making strategic decisions on the wine to be made each year since she has a trusted pallet which guides the wine choices during our annual tasting and blending sessions.